Free The Joy of Sex by Alex Comfort

depression,orrelationship crisis – and it’s not disloyal but sensible to rush off to the doctor or therelationships counselor ( see resources ). Ignoring the problem and teeth-gritting – followingAlice, Lady Hillingdon’s advice to “lie back and think of England” – will simply make the problem worse as the lack of pleasure gradually seeps into your blood. Eventually, all that will be left is negative reaction; a partner’s touch becomes something to shrink from. Get help now.
    Other than these situations, a strong and lastingdesire for each other is a reasonable request to make of thelove gods, but serious players know that the gods help those who help themselves. Desire will be strongest where lovemaking is most effective; that means both partners should know how to arouse creatively and bring the other to climax as a matter of course, however much teach-and-learn it took to get there. In the end, Pavlov’s dogs stopped salivating when no food appeared; it’s wise to make sure that most meals satisfy both diners at least most of the time.
    Intense desire is not just about passion, however, but also about emotion – one reason why the title of this book contains words referring to both. If we are to keep lusting, we need to keep feeling; if resentment and irritation lead to emotional anesthetization, that will inevitably lead to physiological anesthetization and a total shutdown of sensation experience. This is not to say that feelings have to be positive all the time – even the best of relationships contain some of what sex therapistDavid Schnarch describes as “reptilian” reactions; that is, going in for the kill. But to keep on feeling passion, you need to have the courage to keep feeling full stop. Rage if you have to, but don’t disengage.
    Remember that desire will be strongest in situations where it’s awarded the most space and encouragement; if you want each other, act on it. A truly dedicated lover works at their art, and realizes that art is no less valuable for having to be worked at. The more sex one has, the more one will want – even with his biological limiter, that is true for him, and it’s even more true for her.

love
    We use the same word for man-woman, mother-child, child-parent, and other interpersonal relations – rightly, because they are a continuous spectrum. In talking about sexual relations, it seems right to apply it to any relationship in which there is mutual tenderness, respect, and consideration – from a total interdependence where the death of one partner maims the other for years, to an agreeable night together. The intergrades are all love, all worthy, all part of human experience.
    Some meet the needs of one person, some of another – or of the same person at different times. That’s really the big problem ofsexual ethics, and it’s basically a problem of self-understanding, and of communication. You can’t assume that your “conditions of love” are applicable to, or accepted by, any other party; you can’t assume that these won’t be changed quite unpredictably in both of you by the experience of loving; you can’t necessarily know your own mind.
    If you are going to love, these are risks you have to take, and don’t depend simply on whether or not you have sex together – though that is such a potentially overwhelming experience that tradition is right in pinpointing it. Sometimes two people know each other very well, or think they have worked things out through discussion, and they may be right. But even so, if it’s dignifiable by the name of love, it’s potentially an open-ended experience. Tradition has tried to cut the casualties by laying down all kinds of schedules of morality, but these never work 100 percent in practice. Nor are they of much use in classifying the merits of different kinds of relationships ( see fidelity ).
    If sexual love can be – and it is – the supreme human experience, it must be also a bit hazardous. It can